60 of 60 events · showing 1–20
Country in West Asia and Southeast Europe
605 BCE
The Battle of Carchemish was a battle fought around 605 BCE between the armies of Egypt, allied with the remnants of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, against the armies of Babylonia. The forces would clash at Carchemish, an important military crossing and trade city on the banks of the Euphrates River in modern-day Syria.
September 406 BCE
The Battle of Arginusae took place in 406 BC during the Peloponnesian War near the city of Canae in the Arginusae Islands, east of the island of Lesbos. In the battle, an Athenian fleet commanded by eight strategoi defeated a Spartan fleet under Callicratidas.
405 BCE
The Battle of Aegospotami (Greek: Μάχη στους Αιγός Ποταμούς) was a naval confrontation that took place in 405 BC and was the last major battle of the Peloponnesian War. In the battle, a Spartan fleet under Lysander destroyed the Athenian navy.
May 334 BCE
The Battle of the Granicus in May 334 BC was the first of three major battles fought between Alexander the Great of Macedon and the Persian Achaemenid Empire. The battle took place on the road from Abydus to Dascylium, at the crossing of the Granicus in the Troad region, which is now called the Biga River in Turkey.
5 November 333 BCE
The Battle of Issus (also Issos) occurred in southern Anatolia, on 5 November 333 BC between the Hellenic League led by Alexander the Great and the Achaemenid (or Persian) Empire, led by Darius III. It was the second major battle in Alexander's invasion of the Persian empire, and the first encounter between Darius III and Alexander the Great. The battle resulted in the Macedonian troops defeating the Persian forces.
301 BCE
The Battle of Ipsus (Ancient Greek: Ἱψός) was fought between the successors of Alexander the Great (referred to as the Diadochi) in 301 BC near the town of Ipsus in Phrygia. Antigonus I Monophthalmus, the Greek Macedonian ruler of large parts of Asia, and his son Demetrius were pitted against the coalition of three other successors of Alexander: Cassander, ruler of Macedon; Lysimachus, ruler of Thrace; and Seleucus I Nicator, ruler of Babylonia and Persia.
281 BCE
The Battle of Corupedium, also called Koroupedion, Corupedion or Curupedion (Ancient Greek: Κύρου πεδίον or Κόρου πεδίον, "the plain of Kyros or Koros") was the last battle between the Diadochi, the rival successors to Alexander the Great. It was fought in 281 BC between the armies of Lysimachus and Seleucus I Nicator.
190 BCE
The Battle of Magnesia took place in either December 190 or January 189 BC. It was fought as part of the Roman–Seleucid War, pitting forces of the Roman Republic led by the consul Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus and the allied Kingdom of Pergamon under Eumenes II against a Seleucid army of Antiochus III the Great. The two armies initially camped northeast of Magnesia ad Sipylum in Asia Minor (modern-day Manisa, Turkey), attempting to provoke each other into a battle on favorable terrain for several days.
6 October 69 BCE
The Battle of Tigranocerta (Armenian: Տիգրանակերտի ճակատամարտ, Tigranakerti tchakatamart) was fought on 6 October 69 BC between the forces of the Roman Republic and the army of the Kingdom of Armenia led by King Tigranes the Great. The Roman force, led by Consul Lucius Licinius Lucullus, defeated Tigranes, and as a result, captured Tigranes' capital city of Tigranocerta.
9 June 53 BCE
The Battle of Carrhae (Latin pronunciation: [ˈkar.rʰae̯]) was fought in 53 BC between the Roman Republic and the Parthian Empire near the ancient town of Carrhae (present-day Harran, Turkey). An invading force of seven legions of Roman heavy infantry under Marcus Licinius Crassus was lured into the desert and decisively defeated by a mixed cavalry of armoured cataphracts and light horse archers led by the Parthian general Surena.
June 47 BCE
The Battle of Zela was fought in 47 BC between Julius Caesar and Pharnaces II of the Kingdom of Pontus. The battle took place near Zela (modern Zile), which is now a small hilltop town in the Tokat province of northern Turkey.
260
The Battle of Edessa took place between the armies of the Roman Empire, under the command of Emperor Valerian, and the Sasanian Empire under Shapur I, in Edessa (now the Turkish city of Urfa) in 260. The Roman army was defeated and captured in its entirety by the Sasanian forces; for the first time, a Roman emperor was taken prisoner.
3 July 324
The Battle of Adrianople was fought in Thrace on July 3, 324, during a Roman civil war, the second to be waged between the two emperors Constantine I and Licinius. Licinius was soundly defeated and his army suffered heavy casualties.
9 August 378
The Battle of Adrianople, also known as Battle of Hadrianopolis, was fought between the Eastern Roman army led by the Roman emperor Valens and Gothic rebels (largely Thervings as well as Greutungs, non-Gothic Alans, and various local rebels), led by Fritigern. The battle took place on 9 August 378 in the vicinity of Adrianople, in the Roman province of Thracia (modern Edirne in European Turkey).
June 530
The Battle of Dara was fought between the Byzantine Empire and the Sasanian Empire in June 530 AD during the Iberian War. Following the collapse of diplomatic efforts between the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I and Shah Kavadh I, a Sasanian army advanced on the fortified city of Dara, where it was met by a smaller Byzantine force commanded by Belisarius.
January 532
The Nika riots (Greek: Στάσις τοῦ Νίκα, romanized: Stásis toû Níka), Nika revolt or Nika sedition took place against Byzantine emperor Justinian I in Constantinople over the course of a week in 532 AD. They are often regarded as the most violent riots in the city's history, with nearly half of Constantinople being burned or destroyed and as many as thirty thousand people being killed, accounting for 5-10% of the population.
June 626 – July 626
The siege of Constantinople in 626 by the Sassanid Persians and Avars, aided by large numbers of allied Slavs, ended in a strategic victory for the Byzantines. The failure of the siege saved the empire from collapse, and, combined with other victories achieved by Emperor Heraclius (r.
674–678
Constantinople was besieged by the Arabs in 674–678, in what was the first culmination of the Umayyad Caliphate's expansionist strategy against the Byzantine Empire. Caliph Mu'awiya I, who had emerged in 661 as the ruler of the Muslim Arab empire following a civil war, renewed aggressive warfare against Byzantium after a lapse of some years and hoped to deliver a lethal blow by capturing the Byzantine capital of Constantinople.
15 July 717 – 15 August 718
In 717–718, Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, was besieged by the Muslim Arabs of the Umayyad Caliphate. The campaign marked the culmination of twenty years of attacks and progressive Arab occupation of the Byzantine borderlands, while Byzantine strength was sapped by prolonged internal turmoil.
18 June 860 – 4 August 860
The siege of Constantinople in 860 was the only major military expedition of the Rus' recorded in Byzantine and western European sources. The casus belli was the construction of the fortress Sarkel by Byzantine engineers, restricting the Rus' trade route along the Don River in favour of the Khazars.